News

Environmental organizations are not dropping the guard in their fight against the operations of transnational mining corporation OceanaGold, which has just lost litigation against El Salvador but does not show any signs of giving up the extractive business in this Central American country.

"The threat has not disappeared yet, they (OceanaGold) continue their efforts to confuse people with the supposed advantages of mining," activist Vidalina Morales of the Economic and Social Development Association Santa Marta, one of the 11 organizations that make up the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining - la Mesa, told IPS.

In October this year, the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) decided in favour of El Salvador in a case brought by the US mining company Pacific Rim Cayman (now part of the Australian-Canadian company Oceana Gold) regarding a dispute over the granting of a mining licence for the El Dorado mine, a gold-mining project in Cabañas, in the north east of this Central American country.

From the outset the mining project drew strong opposition from the local population, as well as from various representatives of civil society (both national and international) because of the potential negative impact the mining project could have, both environmentally and socially.

The conflict between Pacific Rim mining, a subsidiary of the transnational Oceana Gold, could continue as the company not only has delayed payment of the $ 8 million compensation imposed last October 14 by the International Center for Arbitration (ICSID) In Washington, but it has initiated talks with representatives of the Salvadoran government in an attempt to obtain permission to exploit gold and silver in Cabañas.

On Friday, dozens of people gathered outside the office of Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, to demonstrate their solidarity with the people of El Salvador who have waited seven years for a World Bank tribunal decision in the controversial case of OceanaGold v. El Salvador. The rally, organized by the Toronto-based Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), and the Council of Canadians, demonstrated support for El Salvador's sovereignty in deciding to stop issuing mining licenses.

The organisations and individuals* who are part of the International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador congratulate you in the unequivocal legal victory that asserts the struggle that for many years you have conducted to defend your water and lands from mining exploitation.

We would like to express our commitment to continue to support this struggle that is a worldwide example against mining exploitation and free trade and investment treaties that trample the rights of peoples.

We will continue to support your demand for a mining law that permanently prohibits metal mining in El Salvador.

At the international level, we will demand that OceanaGold immediately pays out the $8 million dollars that the ICSID tribunal ordered its subsidiary, Pacific Rim Cayman, to pay to the government of El Salvador for legal expenses.

We will continue working with you so that OceanaGold, its El Dorado Foundation and its subsidiary Minerales Torogoz leave the country.

In a tale of people power over corporate power, a tribunal has ruled against a global company in a case over mining rights. Now we need to block trade deals that allow these “investor-state” lawsuits.

The executives of a global mining corporation assumed it would be easy to get their way in Cabañas, a rural region of northern El Salvador. They were wrong.

What they wanted was to extract the rich veins of gold buried near the Lempa River, the water source for more than half of El Salvador’s 6.2 million people. Instead, local farmers and others came together to fight the project over concerns that the toxic chemicals used in gold mining would poison their water. In time, they won over a strong majority of the public and rallied the Catholic Church, small businesses, and labor and environmental groups to successfully pressure the national government to oppose mining.